


Consolation

by flollius



Series: Tracing Lines [7]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Family Drama, Insanity or conspiracy -- you decide, Kili basically learns how to be a person, Kili is basically a badass ninja who stalks the night, King Fili, Lies spies and political subterfuge, Post-BOFA universe, Sequel, Two heartless killing machines awkwardly fall in love: the fanfic, in which people with no experience with therapy try and help each other heal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:27:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21570397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flollius/pseuds/flollius
Summary: Six years have passed since Fili was crowned King Under the Mountain. Kili watches over the kingdom and stalks the halls as his loyal protector, ruthless and calculated. Taming his own personal demons and negotiating the double-edged sword of power and diplomacy, Kili believes he's found his calling in life.Then an unexpected arrival from his past throws his world into disarray.
Relationships: Dís/Dwalin, Fíli/Original Female Character, Kíli/Original Female Character, Ori/Original Male Character
Series: Tracing Lines [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/53287
Comments: 17
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So here we are -- the sequel that asks the question of what next? Basically, everyone except Kili got their 'happy ending'. This is going to be fast-moving but not action-packed (if that makes sense), unpacking trauma and power and gender roles and all that juicy stuff. But I won't be moving at a glacial pace and I don't expect this to be more than 40,000 words. But there will be another one after this (it's like a little 'trilogy' of sequels. Because I always like to be over the top).
> 
> While I haven't written the story in full, it's plotted out in detail and I'm confident to reveal at least the first chapter now. Hopefully it 'feels' like Frailty, while giving off the sense that some time has passed. :)
> 
> If you haven't read my other sequel, Living Things, then I kind of advise you do. It's centered around a person who is a major part of this story. And if you haven't read Frailty, then basically, this is a post-BOFA universe where Thorin is dead, Fili is King, and Kili had to deal with several near-death experiences and a total personality change that has scarred him for life. Except that story took about 800,000 words to tell (oops).

“What do you think?”

Fili sits with his arms folded across his chest, chewing on a thumbnail. Balin’s dark eyes scan the letter silently, giving nothing away. Kili watches from his position, against the wall in his black clothes, so still and quiet that he melts into the shadows. Where he belongs.

“Mm, good.” Balin’s tongue is poised delicately between his teeth. “Do you think it wise to mention her mother?”

“Because she’s not a Longbeard? I thought about that. But wouldn’t it be worse to say nothing and let people’s imaginations fill in the gaps? I don’t want to look like we have nothing to hide.”

“Very true. What about this part – a ‘brief’ courtship?”

“It is... officially.”

“But _unofficially..._ ”

“If we told everyone what happened unofficially, I’d never be allowed to marry her.”

“As long as you’re comfortable with your story, my lad.”

Kili studies the room, the play of light and shadow, the shape of the heavy furniture, the luxurious hangings. Everything in here screams money, too much of it. It still unsettles him, and he knows it unsettles Fili, too. Both of them are still struggling to come to terms with the fact that Fili, quite possibly, is the richest of anyone – dwarf, man, elf or orc – in the world.

“Have you got your announcements ready?” Fili looks over his shoulder. “The call, I mean. You’re taking on two, right?”

“Two recruits is as much as Nori and I can handle at once.” Kili’s voice rasps for a moment, from disuse. “As soon as you declare the betrothal, I’ll declare the call. Three months is long enough for the message to reach the East, and for anybody who wishes to come here.” Not as far as the Orocani’s, but no matter of that. Kili is more interested in the hired swords, the mercenaries, who have a little blood on their hands and could be persuaded to turn straight. There were plenty of Ironfists who had fallen on harder times and left their homelands, but not made it all the way west, yet. He would test them.

“Then we’re all settled.” Balin folds the letter and pushes his chair back. “I’ll get Ori to scribe a royal decree, it should be ready by noon tomorrow for you to sign and seal, and we’ll get it out to the bell-tollers and ravens.”

He leaves with a knowing grin, and then Kili and Fili are left alone – not quite alone, for Teitr the second guard is standing there too, like Kili, with his back against the wall, one with the darkness.

“You ready for it?” A note of something light, something teasing creeps into Kili’s voice. He can’t help himself. “Betrothal, the wedding... marriage.”

Fili looks up at him, oddly grim in his resolution. He won’t play tonight. “I’ve been married for years.”

* * *

That night, Kili dreams that he’s lying in bed – not in his bunk but a wide, soft mattress, draped with furs and linen. He looks down to see that he’s naked and then he looks to his left, and there’s a naked dam beside him, lying on her side, turned away, her long golden dreadlocks spread over the pillow.

He watches her, and then after an agonizingly long time, she turns to face him. The skin is burned black; her eyes empty sockets and her teeth flash like those of a skeleton, the lips burned away.

“Oh, Kili,” Vala says, softly, her voice straining through a smoke-burned throat. “Why did you let me die?”

Kili gasps awake. For a moment her face lingers, the skin peeled back from scorched bone, the blistered hands reaching out to clasp him. Lingering panic claws at his chest, sets his heart racing, and he closes his eyes, breathes in deeply, waiting for the shock to fade. “Fuck,” he whispers, barely audible. The memory doesn’t leave him for a long time.

* * *

The next day begins as normal. He rises early, alongside his brothers, when the night guards come back from their shift. They breakfast together at the long table with its two benches; twenty hearty, hale dwarves, handpicked by Kili as the strongest, the smartest, the most loyal to Fili. His King’s Guard. They all wear identical black woollen shirts covering a mail vest and long trousers and high boots and hidden knives. Twenty cloaks, with ornate silver clasps and deep hoods, hang on the wall alongside twenty polished swords.

Kili reads through his papers as he eats. Everything goes through him. Every letter sent to the king, every record and report, every proposal and message, was read, and signed, by Kili first. Nothing slips past his watchful eyes.

The report from the Front Gate has already come in, a record of every dwarf that has entered, or tried to enter, Erebor. Kili reads it carefully, making occasional notes in his own thick ledger, ignoring the jokes and chatter along the table. The usual story – merchants selling their wares, hunters coming back from the plains, nobility from the Iron Hills attending an upcoming wedding. Nothing interesting, until he catches a name that makes the breakfast drop a notch in his stomach, and his throat close.

He looks up, studying the dwarves. “Styrr.” Kili calls out. His voice was deep and serious, and the others fall silent. “I’m going into the city and you’re coming. We need to visit Stoneplough. Peasant clothes, but wear a mail shirt beneath them. Knives only, no sword.”

Styrr swallows back his surprise. “Sure, boss. When are we going?”

“Now.” Kili sets down the scroll of parchment. “Nori, finish reading through these. If something’s wrong, then handle it.”

They take one of the carriages to the edge of the inner wall, and walk the rest of the way, down to the clusters of houses near the mines, where the poorest dwarves lived. The sort of people who couldn’t be helped, who drink and smoke and gamble their way through moment the moment it lands in their greedy palms. Kili pities them, in a way.

“Who are we seeing?” Styrr finally asks. They head into one of the streets that had been taken up largely by Ironfist immigrants, who came in a flood after Kili returned from the East, and then trickled in slowly in the years afterward, hungry and desperate. It’s why he chose Styrr – with his golden dreadlocks, he’d fit right in. “Someone get in that might cause trouble?”

“No, nothing like that.” Kili says. “It’s, uh, Freja.”

“Shit. Does that mean Mýr is with her? Did they think they’d just slip in? How did they get through the gates?”

“Mýr isn’t with her. It was her, four children and a nurse. She lied and said she was a miner’s widow. It’s a common enough name.”

“How do you know it’s her, then?”

Kili clenches his hand into a fist. “It’s her.”

They start out at the market stalls. It only takes a few copper coins before the fishmonger points down a narrow alley, greedy eyes gleaming as he clutched his prize. “Wait here,” Kili says when they’re a few doors away. “Keep me covered, all right?”

“Sure, boss.”

“Don’t call me boss. You know I hate that.”

“I know you do, boss.”

He knocked on the door. He can hear chatter through the warped wood, the crying of a young child. Then it opens a crack to a girl with wide blue eyes, perhaps twelve or thirteen.

“Yes?” She asked quietly. “Who are you?”

“Is your mother home?” She nods. “I need to speak to her. Tell her it’s—”

“Tell me what?” A hard voice snaps, and the door flings open. Freja sneers in the doorway, thin and dishevelled, in a plain, ragged dress. “What the fuck do you want?”

“ _Amad,_ that’s a naughty word!”

Freja ignores the girl. “Why are you here?”

“I was going to ask you the same question.” Kili struggles to keep his voice low and calm. Last night’s dream comes back to haunt him, lingering in his mind. “Is Mýr with you?”

The girl’s lip quivers, and he realises immediately. “My husband died a year ago of a fever.” Freja seems cold to him already. Maybe she always had been. “I just want to be left alone with my children, Kili.”

“You don’t have to live like this.” Kili reaches into his shirt, pulls out a small bag of money. “It should be enough for a few weeks. I can get you one of the villas in the square, all on me. Anything you need.”

Freja laughs, cold and high and mocking; the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. “What is this, blood-money? You think that if you buy me off, you won’t feel guilty?”

“No, I just—”

“To hell with you, Kili. We don’t need your pity.” She tries to close the door but Kili catches it, holds firm.

“This isn’t about that. It’s for your daughters. I know you want the best for them. You came all this way for them, didn’t you? So they wouldn’t live the life that you and Vala had.”

“Don’t pretend that you knew her.” Her teeth are gritted. “You had no idea.”

Kili swallows. “I did know her.”

“Mahal. You loved her, didn’t you?” Freja laughs again, a dry, tired cackle. “She didn’t love you, Kili. You were just the means to an end for her. But she fucked it up and you fucked it up, and now she’s dead. Don’t try buying off your conscience with me. I don’t want it.” She wraps her hand around Kili’s wrist to pull him away, and numbly, he lets her. “You’re just like Úni. You thought you saw a broken little flower and just had to rescue her. She played a stupid, dangerous game. And we all lost.” Freja spits on the ground at his feet. “I don’t want your dirty coin. Do us all a favour, Kili. Leave us alone.”

The door slams shut, and Kili stands numbly on the threshold for a moment, the little bag heavy in his hand and heart thumping. It was all lies – Freja being bitter, nasty, spiteful, the way Úni said she always had been. She didn’t mean it. But the uneasiness gnaws away in Kili’s gut, the realisation that there may be a seed of truth there, that Freja knows something that Kili doesn’t about Vala. She probably knew her better than anybody, in the end.

He turns away, but the creaking of a shutter makes him stop. On the second floor, above him, is a middle-aged dam, leaning out the narrow window. “Your Highness,” she says as loudly as she dares. “Meet me at the Boar’s Tusk in an hour.”

* * *

Styrr is halfway through his second beer and Kili his first when the dam enters, looking furtively around her. She makes her way to their corner table, checking the face of everyone around them. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” she mutters as she sits across from them. “Lady Freja would have my skin if she knew.”

“You’re the nurse, aren’t you?”

“Aye, Your Highness. Brunhild. I raised Her Ladyship from a babe, and Master Úni and Miss Vala too. They’re all the family I have.” She gives a small, sad smile. “Her Ladyship hurts, Your Highness. She doesn’t mean all she says. She’s just always had a sharp tongue.”

Part of him wants to ask if it’s true, then, everything Freja said about Vala. But he’s afraid of the answer, so he doesn’t. “Can I give you the money, then? Maybe she’ll take it from you.”

“Mayhaps. I can use it to keep the larder full, at least. She doesn’t pay attention to the house. I’ll spend what I can and save the rest for the girls.”

“Of course.” Kili sets the small purse down on the table, and Brunhild sweeps it up into her skirts. “Anything you ever need, send a message to the palace. Say it’s from you, and it’ll come straight to me.”

“You’re a better soul than they’ll give you credit for.” Brunhild murmurs. She lets out a long, long sigh, and shakes her head. “I-I’m sorry, Your Highness. But I must… Ooh, she’ll go wild if she knew I told you.”

“Told me what?”

Brunhold bites the inside of her cheek, looking past Kili at the wall. “She… She didn’t die that day, Your Highness.”

Kili’s heart throbs, heavy and low. “Vala?”

“Aye. It wasn’t her in the fire. It was poor Signí. I didn’t hold with all she did, but she shouldn’t have gone like that. I suppose Sir Húni wanted to teach Miss Vala a lesson. He tried to do the same. But she fought back and stuck him one. They locked her up while they tried to save Sir Húni. You may have walked right past her.” Kili listens silently, growing cold. “She was all burned when we found her. Lady Freja managed to get a little cottage, so a healer could tend to her in secret. I was with her day and night. We knew if we said a word to anybody, they’d drag her to the Ring for murder and collusion.”

“I could have—”

“Lady Freja wasn’t one for forming alliances with you after you murdered her nephew.” Her eyes flashed at that, and Kili knew he would never be forgiven. “That poor boy. Slitting his throat like an animal. But you couldn’t let him live and come back as your enemy, could you?”

“I—I thought Vala was dead. I wasn’t thinking straight at the time.” But it’s all bullshit, and they both know it.

Brunhild seems troubled. “You were the last person Lady Freja would have told. But you were probably the only one who could have saved her. Anyhow, it’s not my place to make those judgements, begging your pardon. We waited until she was healed, and then she arranged to send Miss Vala somewhere she’d be safe, and wouldn’t cause trouble for anyone.”

“Where.” Kili leans forward, wild-eyed. “Where is she?”

Brunhild stares up at the ceiling, lips moving silently. “I can’t, Your Highness. I just can’t. Lady Freja would know I told you. She’d send me away and I could never bear it. Those girls need me more than ever. But she’s alive. And she’s safe. Please, trust me on this.”

She leaves then, thanking them once more for the coin with wet eyes. Kili’s head sinks into his hands and he remained that way for a long time, the waves crashing against him, grief and hope filling him slowly.

* * *

She’s alive. Kili feeds himself on the thought, hungry and greedy. She’s _alive_. Weeks pass in a blur. Kili struggles to concentrate on the world around him. Brunhild’s admission has struck at the core of his being, at something he had forced down and squeezed the life of and hidden from the light. Now, the spectre of Vala hangs over him, breathing against the back of his neck, leaning over his shoulders as he bent over his work. That strange, bewitching girl, who managed to wind herself around his heart like a piece of string, then slipped away, just out of his grasp, her memory has returned to him.

“You all right?” Fili asks one night, the both of them hunched over a table stacked high with papers. “Something’s different. Anything I need to know about?” They work on a tenuous code of silence, where Fili doesn’t ask for some of the darker details of what Kili did, where Kili doesn’t tell him.

“Just... thinking.”

“About what?”

“You know.” Fili does know. It could have been anything, really, after the years they’d had together. And it seems to be enough. Fili just smiles, looking like he wants to reach out and touch him, but thinking the better of it.

“How’s the search?” He asks. “Are people going to write you, or...?”

“No, it’s an open call this time.” Kili has already handpicked enough dwarves from the army, from his close circle of confidantes. He knows there’s good talent out there, who will name come forward for their own reasons. “Anyone who shows up in on the day at the foot of the mountain can try their luck.”

“ _Anyone?”_

“Anyone. They just have to pass the first step.” And what a first step. A hundred-mile hike along a marked path through the foothills of Erebor. Anyone who could do it in two days can progress – but Kili knows they’ll be very few.

“And then what?”

“A series of tests. Physical strength, code-breaking, intelligence, memory, fighting, reading and writing... Just throwing everything at them and seeing how they can take it.”

“Do you ever thing that it’s too much?” Fili asks. “What if nobody passes your tests?”

Kili shrugs. “Then I don’t want them.” He’s hard and unrelenting about this, and thankfully, Nori agrees with him. “I only want the best of the best, when it comes to protecting you.”

Fili looks downward, a little abashed, and shakes his head. “You should be proud. All of this... it’s you. You’re holding this place together. Erebor owes you everything.” But all she did was take. The thought hung in the air for a moment, unsaid.

* * *

Kili wonders often if he should tell Úni. He finds himself standing in the square, staring at the grand villa that he had paid for, filled it with pretty things, where Úni now lives with his wife, drinking himself to death. He thinks of his own bubbling outrage at having the truth kept from him, and how he nourished himself now on the hope that Vala, somewhere, could be out there. And when he receives a receipt for two casks of wine amongst Úni’s household expenses, and sits down and worked out how long it has been since the last one, Kili knows he has to say something.

He waits in the fabulous sitting room, full of tapestries and silks and porcelain pottery. He had thought, stupidly, his generosity would help ease the aching guilt. “Your Highness.” Ásta, a young dam of thirty and the young wife of the household, smiles at him, showing six gold teeth. The blacksmith had done well for her. Kili remembers when he first laid eyes on her, all skin and bone and bundled up in rags, her face scarred from the pox and her teeth blackened and splintered. Úni pledged to marry her on the spot, after she’d been brought out by the inn-keeper to entertain their party in one of the many Eastern towns they’d sheltered in during their long journey westward. It was such a desperate, misguided act of chivalry, but Úni was so blind with grief, so wounded, and so bitter and hateful at the world, that Kili didn’t dare speak out about it. Nobody did. “Úni’s upstairs. Come with me. We weren’t expecting you.”

Úni’s drunk, which isn’t unusual for him, even this early in the day. Kili had tried to find work for him in the palace at first, coding secret messages and managing intelligence from their spies, but Úni instead took the allowance Kili offered and stayed at home, playing Māta with Ásta or the servants, reading, or just drinking on his own, watching the fire and stewing in his melancholy. He didn’t seem to have the will to pull himself out of his grief so he drowned slowly, inch by inch, while everyone else just looked on, helpless. 

Úni just grunts as Kili enteres the study, gestures at the jug of wine in a silent offering. “I’m all right.” Kili can’t look at him and instead studies a painting on the wall behind him, gold leaf and paint on wood, the colours already dull and faded from the smoky room.

“What brings you here?” Úni’s single eye glitters at him through the gloom. The scar was white and puckered, a hasty seam drawn over his cheek and brow, sewing his empty eyesocket closed. “Ásta call you?”

“No. Not that.” Strange, now that it’s so close, the words struggle to eek out of him. It’s such an old, heavy wound that Úni bears – not just in his missing eye and his dead, withered arm, but in his soul, his shame and failure a blackened rot that poisoned his blood, turned him inside out. “I— Saw someone recently. Freja.”

“Eh? What’s she doing here?” His good hand tightened.

“Her husband died. She had nowhere to go. She’s down in Stoneplough, with four children. Three girls and a boy. And her nurse... Brunhild, is it?”

“Still around, huh.” Úni leans back in his chair. “Stoneplough is full of poorhouses. We—We need to give her money.”

“I tried. She wouldn’t take it. She told me to fuck off, actually.”

Úni chuckles, dry and bitter, reminiscent of his sister. “She always was a spiteful bitch. Bet she wouldn’t have it from me, either. She hates me, you know, for what I did. She blamed me for Hekyr’s death as much as she did Húni.”

Kili’s heard the stories in dribs and drabs, usually when Úni was drunk. “I spoke to Brunhild,” he knows it’s better to try and pull Úni out, rather than let the memories enfold him. “She took the money. She’ll make sure the girls have enough.”

“Good. Someone in our family deserves some damn happiness.” He leans forward, his hands trembling a little, sets his empty goblet on the little table at his elbow and refills it with a jug of wine. The redness slops shakily over the rim.

Kili waits until he’d taken a long drink before speaking. “She told me about Vala.” The tension is immediate; Úni seizes up, his raspy breathing still.

“What about her?”

“She’s alive, Úni.”

“Bullshit.”

“You think I’d lie to you about this?” Kili’s voice rises and breaks. “I wouldn’t. Never.”

“Freja’s fucking with you. She’s making Brunhild tell lies. She’s _dead_ , we saw her. We...” Úni swallows his wine heavily, convulses.

“It was Sígni’s body we saw. Vala was locked up somewhere else. Húni burned her, but she didn’t die.” Those words, which were so stiff and unsure at first, tumble out now. “Freja kept her hidden, looked after her until she was healed.”

Úni scoffs. “Freja would never do that.”

“She disliked Vala, but she’d never want her to die. Not like that.”

“Fine, let’s pretend my sister has a heart for a moment. Where is she now, then? What happened to her?”

“Brunhild wouldn’t tell me.”

“Of course she wouldn’t. You’re being had, Kili. She’s doing this to torture you. To drag it on and make it hurt.” Úni’s lax again, crumbling into the fine tapestry of his chair. “Trust me. I _know_ her. You’re a fool to think she’d ever do something out of love.”

Kili saw the scorn on Freja’s face so clearly, the hard, merciless lines of cruelty. The choking gasp of laughter when she realised that Kili loved her sister. He wonders for a moment if it was all a fiction, a fantasy he clung to in denial. His eyes sink then, to his hands, to the space on his wrist where, just out of the hem of his shirtsleeve, the edge of an old brand gleamed white.

Resolve hardens within him. “Nothing’s hopeless.”

* * *

That night, Kili has what he sees as his most cherished, duty, although he’ll tell nobody. It’s his turn to guard Tova.

When _Amad_ first held his hand and gently said she was pregnant, it felt to Kili like a betrayal, a whiplash of outrage that burned in his chest for a moment, protesting that no, _he_ was the youngest, the child, and he always would be. It was such a silly, lost little thought, of a reality that had been abandoned so long before, and he immediately regretting himself for feeling it.

It brought a lightness to his mother that Kili hadn’t seen before, even though she bent further under the weight of her child. And when Tova was born – a daughter, with her father’s chestnut-dark hair and her mother’s brilliantly blue eyes – and Kili held her in his arms for the first time, there was a fierce surge within him, the fire of protection, for this infant. His sister. It still tastes a little strange on his tongue to whisper it now.

“Kili!” She looks up from the rug before the fire as he opens the door. A soft gleam of Styrr’s golden hair is barely visible from the deep shadow in the corner. Tova claps her hands. “Nanny said you were coming!” The tired nursemaid rests with her chin on her fist, propped on the arm of her wooden chair, eyes half-lidded. She grunts. “Will you be here _all_ night?”

“I will.” He reaches out to take her. Tova flings herself in his arms, and Kili whirls her in the air as she screeches with laughter.

“Can we see Nardur?” She asks, wide-eyed trusting. “ _Please?”_

“Hm, I’m not sure.” He looks over his shoulder and winks. “Does Styrr have time to get him before he goes down for dinner?”

“Yes! Yes he does!” Her little hands grip his woollen shirt. “Mister Styrr, _please?_ ”

“As you wish, Your Highness. Boss.” He chuckles to himself as he goes out.

“While we wait, let’s look at your toys.” Kili kneels on the rug. He’s not supposed to do this. He should be waiting in the shadows, watchful, alert for any sound or movement out of the ordinary. But this is the only time they have together, and it’s precious to him.

Tova thrusts figures of horses and dwarves at him, gabbling in her little-girl voice, her hair falling messily over her face. When Nardur is finally brought in, she squeals, buries her face in his fur and grabs at his ears and he lets her.

“Can I ride him?” Her voice is low, sombre. “I won’t fall.”

“All right. But _don’t_ tell Amad I let you.”

“I won’t.” Kili puts her astride the warg and walks alongside her, one hand on Nardur’s back in a silent bid for him to stay calm. “Is it true you rode him _all_ through Mirkwood?” She screws up her face, probably trying to imagine the enormity of it. She’s only seen it in maps and drawings.

“Nearly.”

“With Fili and _Adad?_ ”

“No, I’ve told you. I was with someone else.”

“Who?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

“I’m old _now.”_

“You’re not two years out of your swaddle-cloths, Tova.” He hardens his voice a little, a warning. “I’ll tell you later. But not now.”

Later, Tova sleeps in her low wooden bed close to the fire and Nardur curls up beside her, as long as the mattress, his nose in her ear. Sibba, the nursemaid, works on her darning, pausing every few minutes to yawn loudly.

“Go to bed,” Kili says. “We’ll watch her.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.” Sibba groans as she rises to her feet.

“Oh,” She pauses as she walks past him. “You don’t tell Tova anything about what happened to me, do you?”

“Of course not, Your Highness.” Her voice is low and breathy. “But she’s a smart little girl. She knows there’s something you’re not telling you.”

“I want her to be old enough to understand.”

“Begging my pardon, Your Highness, but I would say she’d understand better than near most everyone in this castle.”

He hasn’t thought about it like that. Kili looks over her shoulder, to Tova. She’s lying on her back, half her face reflected by the fire, her breathing low and steady. So innocent.

Kili smiles weakly. “Good night, Sibba.”

* * *

The morning is cold and fiercely windy. Kili bites back a shiver and pulls his hands out of his pockets. In the valley before him stand fifty dwarves, wrapped up in cloaks and hoods and tunics, their faces bent against the chill. Some of them are sandy-haired, their dreadlocks whipping in the wind. Others are dark. He spots a few red beards in the scattered crowd and waves, beckoning them to come closer to hear his voice.

“Listen!” He calls out. Fifty faces turn towards him, some wrapped up in scarves and caps and hoods that all he can see are eyes, looking at him, waiting silently for their orders. “I have marked a path of one hundred miles through the foothills of Erebor. You will be crossing open plains, hills, mountain ranges, and forests. Markers of red cloth will guide you along the way. You have two days to walk this trail, back to this spot. I will be waiting for you. Anyone who does not make it by sundown on the second day will not be permitted to continue the trials. Do you understand?”

Silence, a few nods. “Now, of course, some of you may think to cheat.” Kili is no fool. “That is why ten of my guards are stationed along the path. They will carry these.” He holds up a stone token between his forefinger and thumb, marked with several runes. “Each guard will have a separate stone. You must return with all ten to be considered successful.”

“This will test your endurance. You will receive no food or water. You are to carry no packs or skins with you. You will need to march all day and night to make it back in time. It will also test your ability to negotiate the land. You will need to ford rivers, climb trees, traverse steep hills and gullies. Other guards will patrol the course on pony. If you cannot continue, they can take you back and you will fail. But you won’t do that, will you?”

“No sir!” A voice calls out from the crowd. There’s a tense moment of silence, uncertain, that ends when Kili’s face cracks in a smile. The dwarves seem to let out long a breath in unison. A few chuckle. 

“I should think not.” He looks over his shoulder, at the rim of gold along the horizon. “The sun is up. Move, you’re to go westwards along the valley until you see your first marker! And leave your packs behind, I’m watching!”

Kili stands, his hands on his hips, a strange warmth swelling inside of him despite the cold as the dwarves break away. Some break into a jog already, determined to be one of the first to return and win Kili’s favour. Others keep a strong, steady pace. A few talk among themselves. Kili waits until they’re all a few hundred yards away, tricking down the valley in their dark, wintery clothes, before jumping down from the rock, his hands back in his pockets.

“Not a bad crop, by my reckoning.” Nori shrugs. “Two days. You’re a hard bastard, you know that?”

“Has Ori completed the written tests?”

“Yep, saw him last night. He’s made twenty copies. If we get more, he can whip them up with his scribes. We’ve got lodging ready for them?”

“Yes, beds enough. After the march, we’ll put them up in the training room. I want the rest to get a feel for the group. If they’re not getting along, then I don’t want them.”

“So when do we come back out here?”

“I’d say tomorrow, before noon. I’m seeing Fili this morning, he wants to talk about his visit to the Iron Hills.”

“Are you going?”

“I’m trying to get out of it. I’d be going as Prince Kili, not in the King’s Guard, and Fili knows I hate doing that. If _Amad_ and Dwalin aren’t going, I’ll stay behind too. And Tova’s too young to go anywhere. You’ll go for me, won’t you?”

“You know I hate that lot just as much as you do.”

“But you don’t have to wear a crown for them.”

Nori chuckles. “You make it sound such a burden.” It’s supposed to be a wry joke, but it cuts too close for Kili, and he just shakes his head. Truth is, it is.

* * *

Kili finds Ori bent over his papers at his desk in the royal library. It’s a heaving behemoth of wood, tucked away between the narrow shelves of manuscripts, with innumerable little drawers and shelves and cubbies crammed with books and rolled up pieces of parchment and scraps of paper. His brass cipher is out of its little leather case, so he must be coding. Ori looks up, makes to turn the sheet of paper, but he sees it’s Kili and relaxes.

“Morning. Nori said you might be in to see me. Are they off then? How many did you get?”

“Fifty.” Kili finds a stool and drags it closer, sitting down. “Better than I thought.”

“All Longbeard, or...?”

“Mix. There’s some Ironfists, I think some Firebeads and Broadbeams. Maybe a few Stiffbeards. Not sure about them. I’ll get their names and send a raven to our spies in the East.” He looks down at the paper. “What did you get?”

“That letter from Balin to our allies in Belfalas. About the whole Anduin fiasco. I think you’ve already read it.”

“Oh, shit, that barge that went down. I remember now, they want to cancel the trade deal and Thranduil is throwing a fit about it. Fili too. Didn’t even get the first shipment. Apparently the nobility will go mad. They wanted their first taste of oranges and it’s the only major trade point to Harad.”

“I know. Hence...” Ori held up the letter. “Why does he want this coded? Do you know?”

“He doesn’t want anyone in the Iron Hills to know about it yet. And he suspects someone might be light-fingered. Or the messenger might be tempted to divulge its secrets for a price.”

“So _that’s_ why Balin wanted the elvish cipher. Is Thranduil going to decode it?”

“I just hope he doesn’t make his own additions,” Kili mutters.

“Oh, he won’t. He’ll just want his tariffs, he won’t jeopardise that to spite us. He likes making a fool of you, but he likes gold more.”

There’s a pause. Kili leans an elbow on the table and sighs. “What is it?” Ori asks, leaning in, sensing the unease. “It’s about Vala, isn’t it?”

Kili told him the day after he learned. He nods now, unable to look at him. “Don’t. Don’t torture yourself over it. We’ve sent out messages. We’ve got our allies on the lookout for her description. What else can we do, pull half the guard to scour the world for her?”

“No, of course not. I just...” Kili shakes his head. “I should have known, Ori. It just... didn’t _feel_ right. You know? Maybe I didn’t want to believe it, because it was so awful. And I didn’t see her, properly dead. There was always this part of me. But I told myself it was just denial. A fantasty. So I put it away. And now...” He laughs at his foolishness. “All this time, she was alive.”

“I know.” Ori reaches out, takes Kili by the wrist in a rare moment of intimacy. “I _know_ , Kili. It’s the most awful feeling in the world.”

“If I saw her again...” Kili swallows hard. “She wouldn’t be the same. She wouldn’t be Vala. How could she be? She lost everything.”

“You’re still Kili, the one you used to be.” Ori says, his fingers tightening. “I still see flashes of him, now and then. He’s not dead, you know that.”

They both look at their clasped hands. Kili’s nails bite into his, in desperation, in longing, in that brotherhood of empathy, the deep wound of a shared experience, of a brutal amputation of love in a mistaken death. “I know,” Kili finally chokes out, not really believing it, but not knowing what else he can say.

* * *

The morning haze has lifted and the sky is bright and clear. Nori and Kili sit before a long table with ten woven baskets. It’s a few hours until sunset. Already, about ten of the dwarves have returned, their pockets bulging with stone. Kili and Nori take them, examine them, confirm their authenticity and then the victorious dwarves stagger to a long hut where a barrel of beer and a spit-roasted hog awaits them.

“Still some time to go.” They see the dark shapes in the mouth of the valley, moving like ants in the distance. Nori is marking their names, the name of their father and tribe on a sheaf of parchment.

The afternoon wears on and dwarves continue to trickle in, and when the shadows stretch low and the rocks above them burn orange, two dozen exhausted dwarves huddle in the hut, talking low amongst themselves, drinking deep pitchers of beer, or snoozing on one another’s shoulders, their thick beards rising and falling.

Kili watches the dwarves – some stone-faced and silent, some young and nervous, some deep-chested and hearty, belly-laughing in their victory despite their fatigue. Nori takes their names and Kili watches, looking for any suspicious signs. A few dwarves niggle something inside of him – a thin-faced dwarf who said he was a Stiffbeard with sharp, cunning eyes, an Ironfist with waist-length dreadlooks who didn’t look in Kili’s direction, a very young dwarf, with his face wrapped up in a thick scarf who barely spoke above a whisper.

“Is he of age?” Nori asks as the boy retreated.

“He made the march. See how far he goes, doesn’t look like he can take any of the other fellows down in the combat trial.” But there’s another dwarf approaching that snatches his attention away, and Kili doesn’t think anything more of it at the time.

When the sun disappears and the sky fades to violet, Kili enters the hut. A hush immediately falls over the dim room, and two dozen or so pale faces turn to look at him.

“Congratulations,” and a rare smile breaks across his face. “You all made it. Rest tonight, you’ll be shown to your rooms. Tomorrow and for the next two days, you will be tested on your intelligence, your ability to decipher code, your skills in reading and writing, your memory, your strength, and your combat. Testing will be overseen by Nori and myself in two groups of twelve. From you, I will select six dwarves who will undergo a final test of resilience. And from there, we will uncover two dwarves who will join our guard. Understand?”

There’s a nod, a mutter of understanding, and Kili leaves them. The sun has vanished and the sky ahead is purple, littered with a few pale streaks of gold. The jagged peak of the lonely mountain is black, encompassing his vision, and he takes a moment to look at it.

It’s a rare moment of silence, when he’s not thinking about the trials, about Fili, about the guards, about the dozens of letters going back and forth from the castle, about his reports. His mind is like a wide, still pool. But then there’s a ripple, a whisper across the skin of water like a soft breeze, a breath of air from a ghost.

She’s leaning over him again, ethereal, imaginary. He can’t touch her. Kili thrusts his hands deep in his pocket, hunches his shoulders so his face is hidden. It had been going so well recently. He was able to put it almost completely out of his mind – not just Vala, but all of it, Azog, Ilzkhaal, Nazarg, the long months of suffering that had robbed him of that fragile innocence. Ori worries about him, he knows it, and so does _Amad_ and Dwalin. _Amad_ used to say that he worked too hard, barely sleeping, spending his days and nights absorbed in the minutiae of keeping Erebor and her young, untested king, afloat. She begged him to find others to share the burden.

But he turned away from her advice, said he was all right. This was what he wanted, to be busy, to be always focused on something else. If he stops for too long and lets it all return to him, what might happen? He’s heard stories of dwarves driven mad by their own memories of what they had endured, pushed down for years and only later allowed to return to light. He wasn’t going to let that happen to him.

The past is the past, Kili reminds himself, trudging through the lonely twilight. No point in resurrecting it.

* * *

Tonight is a special mission. He’s spent all day with the recruits, watching from the front of the room, their heads bent over their papers, in tests of skill and intelligence and memory. He watched out for dishonesty, people trying to cheat, watched for those who finished early and set down their quills and waited for the small bell to ring, for those who went back carefully over what they had written. But they’ve returned to their long room now, to drink and eat and laugh with one another and the guards not on shift, while Ori and three of his scribes bend over the tests and tally up their answer.

But he has another duty. Kili slips out of the palace in a secret door, known only to a select few. He has the only key. He makes his way into the square, in the late hour when nearly all are sleeping, to one of the grand villas that belonged to the nobility. The guards recognise him, let him in. He’ll need to thank them later for their discretion. The threat will be implied.

Astríðr is already waiting for him, a cloak thrown over her long blue dress, in the entranceway. A thick stack of letters are in her hand.

“Here,” She pushes them into him. “I coded them as soon as I received them. Burned the originals.”

Kili looks through the papers quickly, nods. “Thank you.” He whispers, not knowing who may hear them. “And remember, don’t tell Fili.”

“Of course not, I’m not a fool. How are we getting into the palace? Do we need a disguise?”

“The back way will be fine, no one is out tonight. You didn’t have any trouble with them, did you?”

“No. The announcement hadn’t been made yet. I was just a countess to them, doing my duty. But I can’t go back, can I?”

“Not now. It’s too dangerous. The betrothed of the king caught in the Al-Malik’s private library would ruin Erebor. But thank you for these.” He tucks the papers inside his shirt. The best spies, they both know, are the trusted ones, hidden in plain sight.

When they reach Fili’s room, in the heart of the palace, clinging to the shadows, Kili gives his knock. A small latch opens, and a pair of familiar eyes stare at him. Styrr.

“Good to see you, boss. You got her?”

“Yes, let us in.”

A lock clicks, and the door creaks open. Astríðr pushes past them both and walks to where FIli, where he rises from the couch, his arms held out.

“Darling.” She murmurs, buries her face in his shoulder. They embrace one another tightly, murmur at one another in low voices.

“Can we give them all night?” Styrr asks quietly, so Fili won’t hear.

“Until just before dawn. I’ll come back then. You and Teitr wait outside the door. Listen for anything unusual.”

“As always, boss.”

He gives Styrr too much rope, Kili thinks as he walks down the hallway. But he’s sharper than most realise, he’s got a steady head on his shoulders, and since Geirr succumbed to the fever two years back, he’s needed his humour, in a way, to overcome it. Kili can’t begrudge him that.

When he gets back to the quarters, a few of the guards are still up, talking to some recruits. There’s a little beer flowing, and they bid Kili to join him, so he does. Better to build camaraderie with these dwarves who may one day need to lay down their lives for him. Besides, a little drink is always good for loosening the tongue.

* * *

They’re halfway through the memory test when Styrr enters, saying that Fíak needs to see Kili. Now.

“All right.” It can only mean one thing – one of the recruits is a possible traitor. Kili had given Fíak a list of the Ironfists, asked him to check each one carefully, search his own memory or ask his friends if there was anything amiss. “Ori’s leading the test. Just make sure nobody’s cheating.”

Fíak is in a bright little room near the front of the palace, one that isn’t used much. He groans, rises to his feet as Kili enters. They briefly clasp hands.

“I got this.” He waves the paper. “Been doing some thinking.”

“And?”

“Most of them are clear.” The servants have done their duty – Fíak already has a cup of wine, that he clasps as he spreads the parchment out over his knee. “This fella, though. Gríss, son of Grímsi. His uncle was married to a daughter of Fræg’s.”

“Oh. Shit.”

“I think it will be all right. I didn’t have much to do with Grímsi, but I know someone who did. Apparently he and his uncle didn’t get along. But keep an eye on him, anyway. They’re all interconnected, these families, but this is a link stronger than most.”

“Is that it? Is that why you wanted to see me right away?”

“Ah, no.” Fíak takes another sip of wine. “This one, here.” He points near the end of the brief list. Árni, son of Bjárki.”

“What of it?”

“Bjárki didn’t have any sons. Two daughters. Then his wife died.” Fíak frowned. “Thought I was going mad for a moment. But I checked with one of his cousins. No sons. Whoever this is,” he taps the paper, “they’re not telling the truth.”

Kili bids him a short goodbye, and runs downstairs into his quarters, not sure why his heart is hammering so hard. It’s all right, they caught it in time. But what has this stranger already learned? They’ll have to question him – he’ll get Teitr, he’s not squeamish, or maybe Nori. Hopefully it won’t take long for the truth to be revealed.

By the time he’s there, they’ve already broken for dinner. He doesn’t want to make a big fuss, so he finds Nori, asks him to find the dwarf that calls himself Árni, to take him down into the dungeon. They’ll do this quietly.

The fire is already lit. Hopefully they won’t have to use it. Kili opens the door to one of their small rooms, with a narrow table and two chairs, sits and waits. Sure enough, he hears the lock click in the hall, two pairs of feel make their way towards him.

It’s the boy, with his face all bound in a scarf and cap. Nori pushes him in the room, shuts the door and bolts it, leaning against the iron lock with his arm folded.

Kili breathes in. “Do you know why we called you here?” The boy shakes his head.

“Is your name Árni, son of Bjárki? Answer me.” He keeps his voice firm, yet flat, without emotion. This is cold and clinical.

“Yes.” The boy mumbles, barely audible, his mouth obscured in grey wool.

“I’ve just heard from Fíak, King Víli’s closest advisor, that Bjárni _had_ no sons.” He pauses for a moment, lets the silent speak for him. The boy is very still. “Take that shit off. Let me look at you, properly.”

Árni – or whoever he is – hesitates. All Kili can see is a pair of blue eyes, a few wisps of bright golden hair sprouting up from beneath the woolen cap. “Come on, then.” Nori says behind him. The boy jumps.

Then the boy sits down. Slowly, laboriously, he unwinds the scarf from around his face and neck. His skin is browned from the sun, sparsely littered with golden hair, but for a massive scar that stretches across his neck, his cheek, tugging at the corner of his mouth.

It takes Kili a moment. But then he realises. He’s seen those eyes, that mouth, that nose, before. The cap is removed, but he doesn’t need it to understand; his stomach drops out of him and for a sickening moment he feels like he’s falling, and flying, all at once, spiralling away from reality, in a dreamworld, refusing to believe what’s in front of him. Oh, shit. No. It’s impossible.

The name is strangled on his lips, nearly without air. “Vala.”


	2. Chapter 2

Vala watches him. Her face is still but she’s wringing her hands, twisting the scarf around and around her fingers. “You’re here.” Kili finally staggers out. “Where—Where have you been?”

Nori walks around so he can see Vala’s face, folds his arms and leans against the wall. He’s so insignificant on the edge of Kili’s vision, barely noticed. All he can see is her, that tangled, curly mop of chin-length hair falling around her face, the scar that gapes white and pink on her skin. She looks so different, like it’s been five decades, not five years, that have worn her down. --

“You knew I was alive.” Vala finally whispers, like she’s struggling to talk. “How?”

“Brunhild told me.” Part of him wants to reach out and touch her, to confirm to himself that yes, she’s real, standing before him, solid flesh and bone and cloth. But he’s almost afraid to, like she’ll melt away the moment his fingers close around her. “She lives here. So does your sister.”

“Oh, that—” Distressed, Vala breathes out. He knows what she wants to say. Bitch. Cunt.

“I don’t understand. Where have you been? Why now? What made you come back?” A string plucks, deep, deep in his belly, a stirring of hope that has long been forgotten. Is it for him? 

“I’ve been... around. Getting by. But I thought... maybe it’s time to come back.”

“Here? Were you trying to see me? Is this what it was, sneaking into the palace?”

“No, I want the job, Kili.”

“What?”

“The guard job. I want it. I saw a notice. You said anybody could join, so I thought I’d try.”

“I—I didn’t mean—”

“Mean me?” He’s treading on dangerous ground. 

“No. You’re...”

“I made the march didn’t?”

“Yes, but—”

“And I’ve done well in the tests. I know I have.”

Ori hasn’t given him the results yet, but somehow Kili doesn’t doubt it. “But you...”

“Oh, get over that. Yes, it’s me.” Vala unwinds her hands from the wool of her scarf. “You didn’t say it couldn’t be a dam. Maybe you thought that was implied. But there’s nothing that says I can’t try.” 

There it is, that spark, that light inside of her that burned a fierce flame, that scourged his own soul. Kili can’t turn away from her. It’s dazzling. “I didn’t come out of hiding for nothing. Don’t just turn me away.” 

His head aches. “I won’t. I won’t.”

“Don’t treat me any different.”

“You know I can’t promise that.” Not after everything that’s happened. 

“Well, try. I’ve been on my own all this time. No one looked out for me. I’m not that little girl hiding in her brother’s shadow anymore. She’s dead, Kili. Understand?”

He’s reminded of what Ori had said. How Kili wasn’t really gone, that there were flashes of him, still. And he sees a glimpse of the old Vala now, her hard-bitten determination, her quiet composure. It’s still there, beneath the scar. And he’s reminded of what Freja said too. About how he didn’t know Vala at all. 

One thing he’s got so at, so very, very good, is thinking on his feet, weighing up the options, exploring every possibility, through the deep caverns of his mind, all in a few moments, giving nothing away. But this is different. His thoughts feel dull and sluggish now, and he’s trudging through mud. Kili struggles to piece together his next steps, watching the soft flicker of Vala’s face, her eyes on him, so clear and sharp and blue, a challenge. 

Kili stands, turns to Nori, and whispers very, very softly in his ear. Without speaking, Nori bows his head and leaves them. The lock clicks, binding them together. Alone. 

He doesn’t need to ask what it is that she really wants. He’s felt it too, that yearning emptiness that rested deep in his belly, hungry for a belonging that he didn’t know he could ever find. And for some reason, for blood, for money, or for whatever else, Vala hopes to find it here. 

“Where have you been?” He asks again, firmer this time, taking back some control. “If you want me to trust you, you have to tell the truth.” 

Vala can’t deny this. “Do you know what they did to me, first?”

“No, Brunhild just said you were safe.”

“Safe?” Vala scoffs, a familiar sound to him, oddly comforting. “They tried to force me into the Temple of Mahal. To become a Bride. You’ve heard of them, haven’t you?”

“The anchorites?” He has, from others. “They’re walled in alive. You mean Freja tried to do that to you?”

“I would have been a prisoner. I had to get out. I managed to escape. Then…” She sighs. “I could go anywhere. I didn’t have a brass farthing to my name, but it didn’t matter. I was free. For the first time ever.” 

But she didn’t go to him.

“Why did you come back?” Kili doesn’t offer her any pity or condolences. He knows that she doesn’t want it. “Why now?”

Vala hesitates over the question, thinking. “I didn’t realise how it would be. Every day was a fight against the world. I couldn’t trust a soul, not even myself. And I… I was starting to wonder if this was worth it. If it was what life had to be. I couldn’t go back to the Orocani Mountains, but I started to wonder if there was somewhere else. And then I heard that you were looking for guards, and I thought it was a sign. So here I am.”

“Here you are.” But he doesn’t know what to say. It all feels so clumsy, inadequate. Mercifully then, the lock clicks in the door and creaks open, sparing Kili from more of that uncomfortable silence. 

“Your scores were marked.” Nori steps in, holding a few sheaves of vellum. “Ori had already set them aside.”

“Why?”

“Look.” He hands them to Kili, and he rifles through them. It only takes him a moment to understand why — they were very, very good.

“Your penmanship was highly regarded. And you were good at your sums and calculations.”

“Thank Sígni for that.” 

“I didn’t realise Ironfist dams were allowed to learn all this,” Kili mutters, mainly to himself.

Vala smiles, a small, almost wicked smile, but softened at the edges, in mourning and memory. “We’re not.” 

On the tests alone, she’d be a top pick. But it’s more than that, so much more. And Vala can sense that, sense the trepidation in him, the indecision. “Kili,” she ask, softly, aware there is an intruder amongst them. “Is it because I’m a dam? Or because it’s me?” 

How does he answer that? He can’t. The words are all knotted up, choking in his throat and he’s not sure of the reason himself. There’s so many reasons why he should say no. A dam in their midst would risk upsetting the dynamic of the Guard. He knows some will be less than accepting of her. She won’t be physically as strong as the others, Kili knows that, and she’s still so young. There would be claims of nepotism among the kingdom and his enemies alike. 

But. Part of his mind is heading down another path. Vala could pose as a handmaid or a countess in some foreign court during a royal tour and get access to information nobody else could. She could guard one of the dams during more intimate moments. She could provide a whole new insight into the kingdom and the guard that nobody would have thought of before. There’s potential there. 

And another part of him, a dark, deep, selfish part that he only gives a fleeting regard, knows that if Vala can’t have this, then she won’t stay. Not for him, not for Freyja or Úni or anybody. 

“Continue the trials.” Kili finally speaks. “You have the chance to prove your worth, same as anyone else. But we need to tell the other recruits. If it got out that I was keeping it a secret, they may revolt. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“And you need to see Úni.” Vala stiffens. “He’s killing himself out of grief for you. That’s my only condition.” 

Her eyes are wide, unusually bright — from gratitude, is it, or anger, or fear? Kili doesn’t know. Perhaps he doesn’t really know her after all. Her voice rasps. “All right.”

* * *

The others take it better than Kili expected. There’s some downcast looks, some mutters, some uneasy shuffling, but they won’t question him directly. Vala watches him, silent, haughty, indignant, her chin lifted. 

Kili talks to the guards in their bright little room. They’re cautious but more understanding. He’s handpicked every single one of them because he saw something in them, a spark to nourish into a flame, a bonfire. They trust him absolutely and won’t question his judgement if it proves worthy.

The next day are the physical trials. There’s no need for disguises and Vala dresses down, her arms and shoulders bare and breeches rolled up at the knee. Kili watches the flex of her muscles, the way her hair brushes against her jaw, the gleam of sweat on her brow, how her limbs rise and fall with her heavy breath. A strange ache grows in his belly as she fights one-on-one with a burly dwarf nearly twice as thick as her, his mouth lost in a fiery red beard. 

She has some skill, mainly from dirty back-alley fighting, Kili suspects, and she’s certainly fast, but the other dwarf beats her to the ground effortlessly, grinning in his victory as she bites back her humiliation. The second is closer, but she loses too, unable to topple his broad, bulky body. It’s a problem, he knew it would be and he can feel her embarrassment, her self-loathing and hatred at her own frailty, a weakness that she does not want. 

He pairs her up with one of the younger dwarves at the end, deliberately, to see what she might be like against someone closer to her own size. She’s quick, her limbs aren’t as long but she has a strength and resolution in them, coiled, ready to strike, and when his fist strikes her she barely reels back, just grounds herself, turns, and bring him down with a blow to the gut that leaves him wheezing. 

There are four others fighting, in pairs, but Kili doesn’t see them. He just sees Vala, her nest of hair sticking up at the back of her head, the blood dripping red, red, red, from a cut lip. She’s trying to keep her composure but he can see her jaw is trembling.

* * *

That night, Nori and Kili write their names down in a list, the number of fights they won, their test scores. They combine it into a total, rank them first to last. A dozen will make it through, to the next stage.

Vala is twelfth. He’s sure Nori can see the trembling in his hand when he writes her name on a list, but he pretends not to notice.

* * *

They are in a room, similar to what they were in before, small and dark, lit by a couple of brass candlesticks. Vala sits in a chair with thin, wooden arms, her bright eyes sharp and watchful. This time it is Nori who sits and Kili who stands, his arms folded, leaning against the wall. In the light of the brighter candle, Ori crouches with his portable writing-table and a scroll of vellum, recording everything. 

“Do you understand what it means to be a member of the King’s Guard?” Nori takes the lead on this, and Kili listens, his attention focused on the patterns of speech, the errant flicker of an eye, the tightening of the throat. “You have to give up everything. Your family. Love. Marriage. Whatever home you may have. Throw it out.”

“That’s all right with me.” 

“We have questions to ask you, to test your character. If you’ll fit in amongst us. Everything I ask you, I ask every dwarf who sits in your place. Understand?”

He doesn’t usually say that to them, but this time, Kili knows why. “Yes.”

“What crimes have you committed?”

“Hm. Assault. Theft. Deception. Impersonation. Murder. Adultery.” Any one of those is a death sentence in some lands, if caught. She’s so still, so composed. She must be working hard to restrain herself. The last one is a knife-wound in Kili’s belly and it robs him of air.

“Tell me about them.”

“Assault. I ran into a merchant trader a couple of days after I ran away. Bastard knew I had nowhere to go. He played it cool but then tried it on. Said I had to repay him for his kindness. So I bashed his head in. Theft. I stole his coin and donkey while he lay there bleeding. Deception. I made it to a town of Eastern Men and realised the only way I could get work was if I changed who I was.”

“By not being Vala?”

“By not being a dam at all. You know Men, they’re idiots. Most of them can’t tell the difference. Impersonation. So I wrapped myself up tight and deepened my voice. I mostly got away with it. I was a rower on a trade-ship crossing the sea of Rhûn. I could pull the oar longer than most the men. Adultery. Three of the ships’ boys caught me using the privy. Said they wouldn’t tell the captain if they got a turn. I knocked out a few teeth but they held me down.” 

Kili’s knees are weak. Ori’s rapid scribbling falters. But Vala is so still and silent and emotionless, as though it means nothing to her now. “Murder.” She finally says. “There was a storm about and they were ordered to lash the cargo to the deck. So I shoved them overboard one by one. Everyone thought they were just lost to the waves. There’s others, if you care to know them.” 

He wants to sit down, but can’t, so Kili leans against the wall and listens, his nails cutting into his palms. He believes it. He saw the fire in her eyes as she stood victorious over her prey the day before. So like her eldest brother, although he will never dare to say it. She looked unconquerable, as she does now, so assured that nobody can ever hurt her now. How long did it take to grow that hard callus over her soul? How many wounds was she forced to endure?

“I think that’s enough. Have you any family that you will be separated from? Anyone who depends on you?”

“No. A brother. I haven’t seen him in a long time. He’s got along fine without me.”

He hasn’t. “And you’re not married.”

Vala bares her naked wrists. It speaks for her. 

“Any lovers?”

“No. Never.” That’s another knife wound, sharp and deliberate, cutting deep. He closes his eyes for a moment and all he can see is hands, twisted limbs reaching out for her, dragging her down into a darkness and corruption that would stain her for ever. 

“Nothing that would deter you from this, then?”

“No.” Vala looks a little past Nori’s shoulder, at Kili. Blank. Emotionless. No, he realises, dully. She doesn’t love him, now. “Nothing at all.” 

* * *

From twelve to four, for the final test of their endurance, their strength, their resolution. He doesn’t like to put more through it. It’s dirty, and difficult. 

The list of names shrinks before them, the tabletop scattered with testimonies recorded in Ori’s neat, angular hand. He and Nori debate the stories, detangling truth from lies, looking through the records for holes that they cannot place. 

Some are easy. Arild, the burly dwarf who knocked Vala down so effortlessly, is a definite. He’s the son of a soldier, the eldest of five, a natural leader and guide. Others are harder. There’s a dwarf, Soren, a bastard child who ran away from his mother as a dwarrow and has large gaps in his history. Kili is unsure but it’s Nori who speaks up for him, perhaps because he sees a reflection of his own cracked, turbulent past.

Vala is the last to be discussed. The pages of her history are spread out before Kili, too clean, he thinks, too neat for the terrible words they contain. He wants to say she’s lying, that there’s too much she’s scrubbed out. It’s been hammered into the shape that she wants them to see.

But surely she would have omitted those ships boys’, if she wanted that. He puts the thought away, out of his mind, or he tries to. It’s too much to linger on, the twisted, reaching hands.

“You’ll get rumours.” Nori looks just as troubled as him. “They’ll say you’re playing favourites. Half the Ironfists say you two planned to marry and steal the their throne. They won’t respect her.”

Kili cuts the emotion out, a heaving, rotten, sick thing, a burst spleen causing him unspeakable pain. He’s told no one how close it all came to fruition. Not even Fili. They all think he used her in a way, to get close to Húni, to deliver that killing blow. That he was heartless, manipulative, cruel. And he let them think all that. It was an easier lie than to confess he sent someone he very nearly loved to her death. 

“They’ll be put to bed when they see there’s nothing there. She doesn’t have a shred of that old life left in her.” 

“And she’s a dam. You know a lot of them won’t like that. They barely tolerate her as it is.” 

“If she’s worthy, she’s worthy.”

“Look. If you want to put her forward, it’s your right. I won’t deny you. But you’ll both bear the brunt of it. We can’t shield you from that. We can invent a new title for her, Protector of the Queen’s Bedchamber or something.”

“A glorified handmaid? She’ll see right through it.”

“Is that why you’re doing this, then? Because she’ll leave if we don’t give her this?”

“No. No.” It’s resolute, as though he hasn’t spent hours, days, pawing over it himself. “Nothing is more important than protecting Fili. I won’t compromise that for anything.” 

The quill rests between them, black and glossy, gleaned from the wing of a fallen raven. Nori picks it up in his fingers, delicate, almost uncertain, and then he draws a thick, heavy circle around Vala’s name. “Then so be it.”

—

There’s a day of rest for the others, as they await the decision. But Kili fetches Vala, tells her to meet him in one of the vast antechambers on the ground floor of the palace. It’s only the third time they’ll be alone together, ever, and the thought squirms in his gut.

She’s in her dark street-clothes, a hood pulled deep over her head, her face all bound up in a scarf. She knows where he’s taking her. 

“We don’t have to stay long,” he says, mainly to fill the silence. “Just enough for him to see you.” Hopefully he isn’t drunk already. 

Vala says nothing for a while. He wonders if she’s going to say anything at all, until they’re out of the gates, walking into the square. “You chose me,” she finally says. “You wouldn’t be taking me here if you didn’t.” 

“Nori and I haven’t decided yet.”

“Liar.” 

They’re lost in the crowd, the shouting of the town-crier, the creaking of hand-carts and the braying of a hundred animals, the trilling of a distant street-performer, a couple of drunks bawling at one another, a child screaming for their missing mother. 

“I’m not back for Úni.” She won’t look at him. “Don’t make me go to him after this if I don’t want it.”

“Why do you hate him?”

“I don’t. Or Freja. Uni’s a coward and Freja’s a bitch, but it’s not hate. It’s pity.” A black, nasty pity, but pity nonetheless. 

“Why do you pity them, then?”

“Because they weren’t strong enough for the world they lived in.” And now those sharp, strangely knowing eyes that seem to look through everything, flicker at him for a moment. “Surely you’ve pitied somebody too.”

* * *

Ásta claps her hands with delight when she lays eyes on the fabled Vala. She doesn’t even shrink away at the scar, she scampers upstairs like the little girl she is, trilling for them to follow.

“What miserable gutter did Uni find her in?” Vala asks softly, as they follow her. 

“Good guess. How did you figure it out?”

“My brother always had a softness towards broken things. He thinks he can fix them.”

They knock on the door, and Úni rasps an enter. “Who is it?” He asks as the door creaks open. His chair faces away from them, his body lost in cushion and wood. 

“Me.” Vala steps forward, breathing in deeply, like she’s going to step into a deep pool and plunge down, down, down, into the darkness. Úni groans, scrabbles, the half-empty bottle of wine on the side-table at his elbow falls and leaks blood-red across the carpet. He falls on his knees and clambers, wild as an animal, his single eye riveting at the voice amplified so clearly, one he has heard over and over and over in his mind a thousand times before, repeated in the loneliness of night. 

He sees her, recognises her, and Úni's face collapses, falls in a great shudder, childlike, lost and grasping. Without a word, Vala crosses the floor to meet him, sinking to her knees, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and coaxing him to lean in, the great heaving gasps shuddering against her neck.

“Come on,” Kili take Ásta by the shoulder and leads her away. “Let’s leave them a while.”

“Has she come to stay? Oh! I’ll have them air out the Blue room, it has the best bed.” 

“No. She’s not staying here.”

“What? Where is she? The palace?”

“Yes. For now.” Ásta has done such a remarkable job of preserving that innocence that Úni found so endearing. She’s consigned herself to a perpetual servitude towards Úni, like an altar-girl, a dwarrow-bride, worshipping his slow decay, tender in her love and pity. 

Vala will never give herself over to another. She’s hardened her exterior, a stiff-shelled insect, mistrusting of the world and everyone in it. But Ásta has a a desperate, absolute need to love and be loved, and she lets it all shine so freely, so thoughtlessly. Two shockingly different reactions to pain and trauma, two attempts to overcome it. 

Kili doesn’t stray far. He sits in the drawing room with Ásta; he pretends to read and she pretends to work at her embroidery, the both of them keeping an ear out for a raised voice, the breaking of pottery, the thump of furniture. It seems an inevitable. 

The door slams, and they both jump up. “It’s him,” Ásta sighs. 

“No,” heavy boots thunder along the passage, “it’s her.”

“Vala, oh, come, please—”

“No!” Kili watches, one hand clutching the doorframe. “I knew you would be like this! I’m not a child. You can’t dictate your will over me!”

“You can’t—” Úni stops, his shoulders hunched and eye red, noticing Kili. “Kili, you can’t be thinking of this. The King’s Guard? She’s…”

“I’m what?”

“A dam! My sister!” Ásta shrinks back, pressing against Kili’s arm. She’s not used to this rage. “You know what they do!"

“You have no right — none — to tell me what I can and cannot do!” 

“Somebody must!”

“Must they?” Dark splotches of red grow across Vala’s cheeks, so stark against the scar tissue. “Why? Because I’m just a little girl who needs protecting?”

Úni opens his mouth to protest, but he falters, and Kili knows that any attempt will be false and half-hearted and hollow. They all do. 

“Damn you, Úni! You just have to ruin it, don’t you? You can’t help yourself. But I’m not going to stop because of you. Understand? I won’t stop for anybody.” 

—

It seems like hours of arguing, shouting, a little weeping, the two of them going around and around in circles, refusing to listen to one another, dragging up memories from the past and trampling all over them, verbally beating each other into exhaustion until the four of them just sit there in silence, stunned, drained of energy, and finally one of the servants timidly steps into the room and asks if they would be taking luncheon and would His Highness be staying? 

They leave then, Vala white-faced and shaky, giving her brother a limp hug goodbye. “I’ve never shouted at him like that before,” she finally says when she and Kili are alone. “It just all came out, after years and years, everything I wanted to say.”

“I noticed.” 

“I didn’t mean the worst of it.” 

“I know you didn’t.”

* * *

Late in the night, past midnight but still well before the dawn, the Guard rises. The cells are prepared already in the dungeons; four tiny cells, bone-chillingly cold and reeking of mould and shit, close enough to hear one another scream. 

They enter the room where they’re all sleeping, and take them — Arild, Soren, Grenjad, and Vala. Kili watches his dwarves drag them out of bed without warning and bind their hands behind them. There’s gasps, mutterings of confusion. Arild growls and tries to shrug them off, but the others are subdued and pliant and he too falls silent when he realises this must be a test.

He leads the tight group through the back passages. Barefoot and blind in the darkness, the four final hopefuls stub their toes and twist their ankles and muffle their cries of pain and shock. 

They stand in the narrow passageway, their breath low and wet. “As I’m sure you’ve figured out, you are the last four. All four of you are strong enough, and smart enough to be counted among our Guard. This final trial will test your spirit.” There is a candle here now, fixed to a wall-bracket, visible through a half-open door. They look like ghosts in their pale faces and white nightshirts. “The test is this. You have been taken captive by enemy forces while in disguise. They are trying to find out who you are, by any means necessary. When you say your name aloud, the trial will end. The two dwarves who last the longest before revealing their names will be selected. Do you understand?”

They all nod, the sockets of their eyes shadowed in fear. “Good.” Kili doesn’t wish them luck. They don’t need it. He enters the lit room; Nori follows him and closes the door. Just a moment later, though, there’s a soft knock.

“Yes?” It’s Teitr.

“Just wanted to know.” Teitr looks hesitant. “I’m leading the group on Vala, right?”

“Yes.”

“We’re supposed to strip them. Do I…?”

Kili looks up, but only briefly, worried that looking Teitr in the eye while trying to talk would give himself away. “She doesn’t get special treatment. It’s not fair on the others.”

“So… What else?”

“Whatever you would do to the dwarves. No more. No less. This is what she wants, let her have it.”

“Right. I understand.” The door closes, whisper-soft — Nori’s sigh is louder. 

“You think this is a mistake.”

“Of course I do. You’ve been through this shit, Kili, and so have I. It turns you inside out.” 

There’s a wide bench against the wall, for Kili and Nori to sit and wait. He lowers himself on it now, stretches his legs out, rests his hands on his knees. 

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“That’s all you have to say?” Nori kneels on the bench, hunched over him, his elbow against the wall. “Ori told me, you know. About what you did with her.” Kili stares ahead, silent. “Do you still love her?”

Kili inhales, sharply. “Why does that matter?”

“Oh, you know it matters. It’s ripping you apart to think about what’s going to happen to her. That’s why you can’t look at me. This is just a test. They’re only going to knock her around a bit. What if it’s real, one day? And she’s in the hands of someone who’ll break every bone in her body for a handful of names? You won’t just sit there then.”

“Don’t try and frighten me with possibilities. It’s a cheap trick.”

Nori remains hunched for a long while, watching him. After some time, he groans, eases over so he’s leaning against the wall, splayed out like Kili. “I understand now. You don’t know what you want her to pass or fail, so you’re not allowing yourself to consider either option. Either way you’ll be relieved and disappointed at the same time.”

* * *

Grenjad is first, sometime just after the dawn. Kili waits until he’s dressed and cleaned himself up until he sees him, bitter in his disappointment, his hands shaking and eyes red. He says gently that it’s a shame but he’ll have a strong letter of recommendation for the palace guards, the gatekeepers, the outer patrol. There is so much more for him, but not here. Kili has divided everyone into careful section, butchered collections of limbs and organs, keeping the flow of information divided. Only his King’s Guard see and know all, and he needs to be absolutely assured of their endurance and will. 

And then there’s a long, long wait. Nori paces the room, humming to himself on occasion, and Kili lies on the bench, one leg drawn up. The both of of them are used to waiting, to sitting or standing in silence for hours on end, to feel that absolute stillness in their observation, as though they have become one with the rock around them. 

At first, years and years ago, Kili struggled with the long stretches of silence. He had become so accustomed to that ongoing, constant fight for survival, that being on edge, that to just stand and be was jarring and uncomfortable. His frantic mind clouded over with memories, snatches of dialogue and visions of what he had done, twisted amongst predictions of what was to come, making plans and unmaking them — how, for example, would Erebor endure a plague, a declaration of war, a second dragon? Every room became a battleground; he surveyed possible escape exists, invented makeshift weapons in his mind, looked at every shadow for a flicker of movement. 

The agonising lethargy robbed him of his sleep, left him drained and exhausted, unable to focus. It became a constant for Kili, an unsettling sensation that it just wasn’t right, and never would be right again. He kept his anxiety a secret from everyone, even Fili and _Amad_ , shoved his hands into his pockets when he realised they were trembling, bit his lip through the first traces of a stutter. 

It had to break — it always does, like a sheet of metal that has been hammered thin as paper, bent and twisted and drawn in a hundred different directions. Kili’s breakdown wasn’t loud or spectacular, like the dams on the stage who screamed and sobbed and tore their hair out, like the old dwarves wrapped in the memories of battle who succumb to red-faced spasms at the sound of clashing metal. He got out of bed after another ragged night, his head crawling from a dream-vision where Azog had bound him to a tree-trunk, had torn his stomach open and was eating him slowly, smacking his lips in relish. And he realised with a sharp burst of clarity that he didn’t want to be alive anymore. 

Kili walked outside, barefoot and bareheaded, hoping to find somewhere quiet and lonely, perhaps where a lone traveller would spot the dark inkblot of his body some weeks later. He didn’t want Fili or _Amad_ to find him. His feet traced a thin line along a low ridge across the northern slopes, that looked over the barren wastes, dull and hazy in the winter sunlight. He stood at the edge for a long time, his hands shaking from terror and cold, his feet numb, and a strange sort of emptiness seemed to settle over him. He realised what it was in time — he wasn’t afraid anymore. What did he have to fear for in his own head, when he was just about to die? Kili laughed at the thought, high and clear, the sound of it so strange in the lifeless air that it made him laugh harder, until he was wheezing, and his head throbbed and his legs were weak and he had to sit down. 

Somewhere, the laughter had turned to tears, and when Kili came to himself, he was sitting in a grey slurry of snow, crouched like a beggar, his toes blue and fingers numb and the breath rattling in his chilly body. The precipice yawned beneath him, threatened to swallow him whole, and Kili studied the wreath of mist that circled the bottom, like hungry fish, waiting for a morsel. The thought that he was losing his mind didn’t seem to bother him — it just hung there, like a tapestry on the wall, ready to be ignored or noticed, it didn’t seem to matter. 

Afterwards, when he had returned inside, dressed and went through his papers and did his rounds and filled in the gaps of his presence that morning with effortless lies, when his work was done and he was left alone in his head again, Kili closed his eyes and remembered the mountainside — the taste of frozen air on his tongue, the stones beneath his feet, the way the ice had melted and trickled between his toes, the gleam of the sunlight on distant ridges of untouched snow, the miles of vacant land before him. There was an odd sense of longing as he remembered it, a moment of clarity and peace that would never be regained. 

But somehow, that moment of darkness came to be the mending of what to Kili seemed irreparably broken. He returned to that silence in his mind when he felt the walls closing in, let his eyes drift close and the breath rise and fall, slowly, filling his lungs, leaving them empty, an imaginary tide. After those long long months of feeling like a prisoner in his own mind, a slave and a victim to his memories, Kili started to believe that he could learn how to fight back. 

The thoughts, the nightmares, they never left him completely but he taught himself, over the course of years, how to keep them at bay. Kili wrote a thin, rushed hand, in a mixture of Black Speech, Westron and the Khuzdul he’d been forced to learn all over again, a bubbling cauldron of language indecipherable to anyone except to him. He tried to make sense of his mind, borrowing dialogues and scraps of rhetoric from manuscripts that Ori and his scribes had copied. He folded the leaves of parchment into his pocket and at night set them alight in the fire, watching his haphazard translation blacken and shrivel to ashes. He built up an intimacy with himself, challenged every thought that ran through his head and he truly believed that it made him stronger. His speech eased, grew more relaxed, he managed to still his trembling hands, and it was only very, very rarely, when the blinding terror became too much and he couldn’t get out. 

Kili is giving himself over the silence again now, his hands resting on his thighs, open and relaxed, breathing slowly, in and out. Vala has rattled him but he refuses to let it disrupt the fragile peace he has constructed in his mind. He can’t shut her out, not now, so instead he invites those thoughts in, becomes acquainted with her. It’s the only way to cope. 

But still, after these days, and hours, all the time that has passed since she pulled back her disguise and revealed herself to him, Kili still isn’t sure what it is he really wants. All the possibilities are still laid out before him, all the different paths that they could take, together and alone, and he stands at the crossroads, waiting, knowing that this isn’t his decision to make anymore. 

There’s a knock at the door, beating like a wardrum in Kili’s ringing ears. His eyes snap open and he stands up, doing his absolute best to keep his face still and open, to give nothing away. 

It’s Styrr. He looks tired but oddly triumphant, because now there’s an end to all of this. At his side, Nori sighs. “Arild folded,” Styrr says, and although the earth reels beneath Kili’s feet as he realises the consequence of this, he remains stubbornly still. 

“I’ll speak to him now. Tell the others to stop, get them their clothes.” Kili gestures to the end of the bench; four black bundles lie in wait, from largest to smallest, shirts and long trousers and mail, heavy dark cloaks. Four pairs of boots stand empty, two of them never to find their masters. The runes of their names are written on scraps of paper, tucked in the folds of dark fabric. “Nori, you get Soren. I’ll get Vala.” So they both get their favourites, in the end.

“Hear you, Boss.” Kili leaves them then, finds the little cell where Arild had been. He’s pulled on his trousers but his shirt still hangs limply across his knees. His head is bent and he doesn’t react when Kili tells him, gently, that he’s sorry that he didn’t make it, that he will be first in line if, for whatever reason, Soren and Vala fail to complete their training, that he will personally recommend Arild for another position in the palace, with more honour, in some respects, and less duty. The King's Guard aren’t the most popular; amongst many, they’re feared, rather than trusted, and Kili isn’t convinced that that’s necessarily a terrible thing. 

But Arild never looks up, bitter in his grief and anger and disappointment and Kili leaves him. The others are milling in the hall now, talking quietly amongst themselves. Kili threads his way through them and turns the corner to Vala’s cell. For some reason, his heart is thudding as he opens the door, and the creak of the hinge seems to grate along his spine. 

Vala is still naked, sitting very straight in her chair with the bundle of clothes in her lap, the boots on the ground at her feet. Kili stands frozen and the door swings shut behind him. She looks up at the sound and her shoulders hitch. “It’s not a trick, is it?” Her eyes are red and swollen, her hair is still sopping wet and she’s shivering in the cold. 

“Arild and Grenjad folded. It’s not a trick.” 

“You’re really going to let me join?” 

He tries not to look at her breasts, her bare legs, the curve of her hips not quite hidden by the fabric in her lap, and fails. “Yes. You passed the trials. Those clothes are yours. With any luck, it’s all you’ll ever wear.” Vala runs her hand over the soft oilskin cape. “You need to get dressed; the other are waiting.” 

“My other clothes — I had my bindings in them. I need it. Please.” 

“Of course.” He forgot about that that. Kili finds the odd little scraps in a basket, waiting to be burnt. It’s a stiff fabric in a flat, wide piece with a row of metal fastenings. Vala must have made it herself, he thinks. A very unique purpose. 

She flinches when he opens and closes the door, but it’s a sign of life. “Do you… need help? Or…”

“I can put this on myself.” But Vala’s fingers are crooked and numb and she fumbles. “Damn it— Just—” She huffs. “Stupid thing. I always hated it.”

“Let me.” Kili leans forward, holds his breath and with a little sigh, Vala lifts her left arm, holding the fabric close across her chest with the right. She’s still quivering, from the cold, or fear, or excitement, or all three, Kili doesn’t know. The metal clasps hook into one another, keeping the fabric pulled tight. “Why don’t you just use string, and lace it?” He asks without thinking, really, to distract himself from what he’s doing, to get her to speak. 

“I’m not wearing a corset. Not now, not ever.” 

“You don’t have to wear this now.”

“Yes, I do. I won’t fit the mail otherwise.”

“Oh.” He hadn’t thought of that. Kili finishes, flexes his fingers and curls his hands into fists. He looks away as Vala stands up, hissing as she forces her stiff joints to move, to thread her legs through the trousers. 

It still feels so unreal to him; distantly, he understands what this means. He will need to train her, to beat her and mould her into the shape that he needs her to be. Vala will shadow his every move for the next twelve months, until he is confident that she can hold her own. And through all of it, they must still remain separate, with no deeper feeling than the familiar camaraderie that springs between two brothers in arms. He knows already that it is impossible. Somehow, this will destroy them both. 

“How did you come up with the water?” The trough is still there, pushed up against the wall, the skin of the water as still as glass, black in the shadows.

The memory drifts through his mind; Kili acknowledges it, briefly, then lets it slip away. “Experience.” 

“You didn’t want to hurt us. Not physically. You wanted to frighten us.”

“It worked didn’t it?” Kili turns around. Vala is lacing up her new boots, one foot on the seat of the chair. She pauses, not looking at him. “For Arild and Grenjad, at least.”

“They were never going to win.” She ties a loose, clumsy bow, lets her foot fall heavily. “They don’t know what it’s like to be in the thick of it. To know that you’re going to die and no one will save you. You tried to replicate that here. But you can’t. It doesn’t feel real, if you’ve really lived it.” 

“So it didn’t frighten you?”

“I didn’t say that.” Vala lifts her chin, defiant, trying to stare him down and prove her strength. But she is still there, that frightened child in deep over her head, thrust into a world she was not ready for. That old guilt stings in Kili, burns afresh, untouched by the distance of time. “It was hell. Agony. But I knew you weren’t going to kill us. So all I had to do was hold on.” 

**Author's Note:**

> So, I am actually working harder than I ever was pre-COVID-19 (work in a union haha fml) and my stress levels are through the roof but nevertheless I feel like this story is in a good place so i will do my best. love to you all!! :)


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